Widescreen support

[KevinST]

Hi all,

I'm currently using MCE2005 and contemplating moving to something more supported and potentially feature richer. The main reason for wanting to move is that I'm after widescreen support.

My PVR PC is connected to a satallite received for composite and audio cables - these are the same cables that connect the satellite box to the Sony CRT widescreen TV.
The PC is connected via sVideo or composite.
If the TV prog is broadcast in widescreen then the TV automatically changes to widescreen view, if the prog is in 4:3 then it stays in normal view. With MCE2005 I have to manually change the TV to widescreen when watching a recorded prog that was originally broadcast in WS... I would expect the TV to change automatically as it would if I was watching the prog live.

From research it appears that a WSS signal is sent via line 23 of the signal and the TV uses that to change between WS and std.

Does BoyondTV record and playback this information stored in line 23?

Other components I guess that are important are;
PVR-150MCE TV cap card
nVidia 5500 video card (also have ati 9250 and 9550 cards).

Advice on if BeyondTV will do what I want will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Kevin

[myktek]

i'm not sure about the line 23 information your asking, but we have an option for Auto Aspect Ratio, so it reads the broadcast and adjusts it's picture accordingly.

[KevinST]

Thanks for the reply.

Line 23 information is used by the TV to switch between normal and widescreen. From what I can understand this is especially important for CRT TV's as the signal supplied is always 4:3 ratio but the TV then stretches the image to fill the display.

[Fonceur]

The thing is that you are displaying a windows application, so the signal will always be the same, regardless of the TV signal... OTOH, you can use the option menu to switch between those various aspect ratios...

[KevinST]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

The thing is that you are displaying a windows application, so the signal will always be the same, regardless of the TV signal... OTOH, you can use the option menu to switch between those various aspect ratios...

So you don't think that the "system" would be able to record and playback the WSS signals form the original signal? I realise that a lot of it would be down to the drivers for the TV cap card and the gfx card used for TV out... but had thought that it would be no different than for CC support as that's also data which is supplied in off screen lines, is recorded and can be played back :-/

Maybe the only option to get what I want is to move from a CRT TV to a LCD that has DVI in and receives native widescreen resolutions.